Thursday, January 24, 2013

Thu 24th Jan Todays News

Tim Blair – Thursday,January 24,2013 (2:45pm)

The television presenter said that humans are threatening their own existence and that of other species by using up the world’s resources.

He said the only way to save the planet from famine and species extinction is to limit human population growth.

“We are a plague on the Earth. It’s coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so. It’s not just climate change; it’s sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde. Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now,” he told the Radio Times.

If the natural world is “doing it for us right now”, what’s the problem? And speaking of resources, the latest Australian shale oil find is potentially spectacular:

Tim Blair – Thursday,January 24,2013 (2:41pm)

Barry Jones recalls the live television launch of Labor’s 1964 Victorian election campaign:

[Labor leader Clive Stoneham] was to read the speech from large sheets of pasteboard on which the text had been written. At the top left corner of the first sheet his name, ‘CLIVE’, had been written in capitals as a cue to avoid confusion. Unfortunately, the curves of the letter ‘C’ had been drawn over-generously, so the letter resembled an ‘O’.

At 8pm the live telecast began. Allan Fraser - the member for Eden-Monaro, who had been brought down from New South Wales to be campaign director in the election - stood by the first pasteboard sheet, pointing to the name ‘CLIVE’. The leader looked baffled and said nothing. Allan Fraser tapped the name ‘CLIVE’ again. Silence. He tapped a third time. Clive Stoneham smiled, relaxed and mysteriously began his televised campaign election speech with the words, ‘Thank you, Olive’.

Labor’s deputy leader Dinny Lovegrove then followed with a rant against people who own sprinklers: “We know what this election is about: the struggle between the rich and the poor. We know who our enemies are: the kind of people who have two cars in the garage, central heating and a sprinkler system in the lawn.”

“The evidence has shown the failure of ‘dob in’ strategies. The experience with the Federal tip-off line for Centrelink fraud shows that we can expect a very small number of calls to be acted upon. An anonymous dob-in system can become bogged down with complaints that are oftenincorrect, unsubstantiated and in some cases vexatious,” Ms Barham said.

Tim Blair – Thursday,January 24,2013 (2:15pm)

Peter Robbins, an Oceanside resident who as a child actor was the voice of the animated “Charlie Brown” character of “Peanuts” fame, has been arrested and is scheduled to be arraigned in court on Wednesday in San Diego on five felony charges, authorities said.

Robbins, 56, is charged with four felony counts of making a threat to cause death or great bodily injury and one felony count of stalking, according to the San Diego County jail website.

That biographical item may be correct or Nova’s ancestry may have a different mix. That’s not the point. The real point is that what was once a perfectly innocent biographical item, republished in several editions, is now too explosive to discuss in Salem Australia.

(No comments. I know serious issues of public interest are involved, but I want one year of no legal worries.)

Part of the investigation is believed to involve a power of attorney document prepared and witnessed by Ms Gillard - then a salaried partner at Slater & Gordon - that her boyfriend and senior Australian Workers Union official Bruce Wilson used to buy the house in the name of union crony Ralph Blewitt.

Mr Blewitt, who is assisting the fraud squad investigation, has claimed he did not see the document until after the auction, which was attended by Mr Wilson and Ms Gillard.

Mr Blewitt returned to Melbourne from his home in Malaysia this week with further documents relating to what he describes as ‘’a major fraud’’ involving hundreds of thousands of dollars taken from the AWU Workplace Reform Association - some of it used to buy the Fitzroy house.

Ms Gillard, who helped establish the association, which she later described as a union election slush fund, has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing or knowledge of the misappropriation of AWU money…

Olive Palmer, the legal secretary who managed the conveyancing work for the Fitzroy house purchase and a mortgage through a Slater & Gordon loan facility, met detectives in Melbourne earlier this month.

One of the investigating detectives later flew to Queensland and conducted interviews with Ms Palmer, formerly known as Olive Brosnahan, at her Sunshine Coast home.

The power of attorney document drafted and witnessed by Ms Gillard that Mr Wilson used to buy the Fitzroy property in Mr Blewitt’s name was dated February 4, 1993.

But a note in the conveyancing file handwritten by Ms Brosnahan and addressed to Ms Gillard on February 16 says: ‘’We need P/A or certified copy’’.

Mr Blewitt claimed last year that he had not seen the document prior to the auction and that Mr Wilson had later brought it to him for signature in Perth, where he was AWU state secretary.

Yesterday’s show here. Nova Peris should toughen up and drop the screams of racism. And more, including a debate on the beer capital of the world. I nominate this beer as potentially one of the very best:

The White House for weeks misled the world about last year’s Islamist attack on its Benghazi consulate which killed four Americans.

It claimed the attack was just a protest against an anti-Islam film that got out of hand, rather than a planned and co-ordinated assault by an al-Qaeda-linked militia on a US outpost whose request for extra security had been denied.

But even as she accepted blame for the security lapses in Benghazi, Clinton made an effort to protect her legacy at State — and potentially her chances at a presidential run in 2016 — by denying any wrongdoing herself.

A bipartisan board that investigated the Libya attack “made very clear that the level of responsibility for the failures that they outlined was set at the Assistant Secretary of State level and below,” Clinton said. “These requests don’t ordinarily come in to the secretary of State.”

That drew a blistering response from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky).

“I think ultimately with your leaving you accept culpability for the worst tragedy since Sept. 11,” Paul said. “If I’d been president at the time and I’d found that you did not read the cables from Benghazi, you did not read the cables from Ambassador Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post.”

“Not to know of the requests for security, really I think cost these people their lives.”

Clinton tried throughout the hearing to reassure lawmakers that her agency has learned from the mistakes that led to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others at the diplomatic facility. She choked up as she recalled consoling the families of those who died…

Senate Republicans did not shy away from tough questions, and renewed their accusations that President Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, was dispatched for interviews after the assault in a deliberate attempt to mislead the public about what had happened as the presidential election loomed.

Rice dropped out of contention to replace Clinton at State in the face of Republican outrage about her initial statements on Libya, which attributed the attack to a peaceful protest gone awry.

Clinton said she wasn’t the one who sent Rice to talk to the media…

In the sharpest exchange, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) pressed Clinton about why survivors of the Libya attack weren’t interviewed before Rice’s public statements.

“With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans,” Clinton told him angrily. “Whether it’s because of a protest or whether a guy out for a walk decided to go kill some Americans, what difference at this point does it make?”

In retrospect, Clinton said, the administration could have done a better job making clear it did not know all the facts when Rice testified.

“We did not conclude until days after the attacks that there was no protest at all,” she said.

Clinton said she could not confirm reports from Algerian security officials that militants who attacked an Algerian natural-gas complex last week participated in the attack on the diplomatic compound in Benghazi. But she said the attackers in Algeria and the Islamists in Mali were armed with weapons looted from the former arsenals of deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher Wednesday alluded to the fact that no one involved in the Benghazi terrorist attack has been arrested while the the man who made the anti-Islam film “Innocence of Muslims,” was arrested by California police for a parole violation.

Aborigines might well be grateful to The Age for getting a white writer to sum up what they are all collectively thinking - every one of them. After all, much better for The Age to have a white describe their thoughts than to let some Aboriginal writer speak for themselves and risk him or her straying off the ideological reservation.

Alfred Health has revealed it will add hundreds of elective surgery patients to expanded waiting lists over the next four months in an attempt to claw back $7.8 million in withdrawn federal funding.

Those cuts followed the Royal Children’s Hospital’s announcement that it was forced to axe 50 jobs…

After recalculating Australia’s population growth - on which the federal-state funding is based - the Gillard Government slashed $470 million from Victoria’s health budget over the next four years, including $107 million which hospitals had already allocated to patient treatment and care.

Lots of opposition to Julia Gillard’s racist decision to replace white Senator Trish Crossin with black neophyte Nova Peris. Thing is, most of that opposition is from Labor figures appalled by Gillard’s highhandedness, her tokenism, her choice and her vengeance against Rudd supporters:

Senator Crossin declared yesterday she would fight on and would encourage others to enter the [pre-selection] race…

Earlier, vocal Left Senator Doug Cameron attacked the decision, accusing Ms Gillard of a “pretty brutal exercise of political power . . . I think simply a night of the long knives against a senator who has given the party a long-term commitment, a very effective commitment, is not a good message,” Senator Cameron told ABC radio.

If the party wanted an Aboriginal member of parliament it should have selected one democratically rather than “parachuting people in and saying that soothes our conscience in terms of Aboriginal representation . . .”.

Branch president of the ALP in Alice Springs, Rowan Foley, said he was “gutted” by the move. Mr Foley, an indigenous candidate for Labor at the Territory election last August, said the Prime Minister’s intervention was a “setback” for Labor in the Territory...

The decision sparked a backlash from ... former Territory Labor MLA Marion Scrymgour, who hoped to run for the Senate…

“If Canberra is afraid to have someone stand up and have the debate then I don’t want to be part of that process - I think it’s disgraceful…“I’ve tried to go through a process here because I’ve always believed in the values of the Labor party, but yesterday’s exercise left a very sour taste in my mouth,” she said…

Former Chief Minster Paul Henderson said the road ahead for Nova Peris would be a struggle without the support of the Territory Labor Party…

“There’s going to be a lot of fences and bridges that need to be built when she gets back to the Territory.”

“This is a race-based attempt to try get some sort of tokenistic measure,” he said.

“This racial issue which has come about, and was the complete message the Prime Minister gave yesterday, leaves a bad taste in my mouth because it says we are not good enough to compete on an equal playing field so we have to be parachuted in.”

The Sunday Age has used allegedly leaked emails to reveal allegedly dark deeds by a Victorian Liberal MP, Inga Peulich:

LANDHOLDERS in Melbourne’s south-east are furious after they bankrolled the election campaign of a Kingston councillor - so he would help rezone their land for development - only to find out he offered a deal to an anti-development councillor in a bid to get elected as mayor.

Questions hang over the funding of last year’s election campaign of the councillor, Paul Peulich, son of state MP and powerbroker Inga Peulich…

Fairfax Media revealed on Saturday that upper house MP Inga Peulich intervened directly on behalf of her son in his mayoral bid…

On Saturday Ms Peulich, in an email, said the story was “codswallop”. “I have never lobbied for mayoral votes for Cr Paul Peulich - he can do that for himself. If you have an email in which I have done this, then I would have expected you to quote from it.”

Well-placed Liberal sources tell VEXNEWS that there’s every chance all of the emails referred to by The Age are forgeries and that the ailing newspaper has refused to provide copies of the forgeries when asked by representatives of Ms Peulich.

Legal action is threatened:

Metropolitan Region Upper House MP Inga Peulich, who has been accused of the meddling, said emails purporting to be from her were fake.

And just why it’s so bad for a state MP to openly lobby for a local government candidate has me beat.

UPDATE

Reader the lone gunman writes:

Perhaps this will be the Age’s Godwin Grech moment. I wonder they will report the story like they did for Turnbull?

Here is a taste:

THE OzCar affair has exploded spectacularly in Malcolm Turnbull’s face after the email at the centre of the episode was discovered in the home computer of senior Treasury official Godwin Grech and confirmed to be a fake.

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===VIC POLICE CLOSE IN ON GILLARD

Information out of Melbourne is that more than a dozen detectives on an unlimited budget are on the brink of laying charges in the AWU Wilson/Gillard fraud case.

One reliable source has said two major law firms should expect raids within days and explanations will be demanded regarding instances of missing documents.More than 50 people have been, or are yet to be, interviewed including Bill the Greek Bullshit Artist Telikostoglou, (as Julia Gillard affectionately refers to him as). He missed his flight from Athens but is now expected in Melbourne next week.

Another reliable source has said to me, “We expect to have this all wrapped up in a few weeks, hopefully no later than March, and there will be people charged.

"We are treating this matter extremely seriously and no stone will be unturned in ensuring the alleged culprits face justice.”

There was no indication given as to who would be charged but the level of urgency and thoroughness indicated to me (and I say indicated) there is little doubt Julia Gillard is viewed as a major player and very much a person of interest.

Ralph Blewitt, Bob Kernohan and others, including Nick Styant-Browne, have been busy giving statements and disclosing further information to police in a veritable revolving door of witnesses coming and going at StKilda headquarters.

In a future article (Part X of the Gillard files) I will give what I believe are the four main areas where Gillard is in serious trouble and will need to explain herself.

But in the meantime, as cricket commentator Bill Lawrie says, “It’s all happening!”
===Black Clouds over Arizona — at Seneca Lake Recreation Area.
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===Czech Republic as published in the Prager Zeitung of 28 April 2011.

"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry capable of entrusting an inexperienced man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America. Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama. It is less likely to survive amultitude of Idiots such as those who made him their president."
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===Thomas Blamey, born near Wagga Wagga on 24 January 1884, became the first Australian army officer to reach the rank of field marshal. Originally a teacher, Blamey received a commission in the Commonwealth Cadet Forces in 1906 and was posted to Melbourne.

In 1910 he transferred to the Australian Military Forces and was promoted to captain. He graduated from the Staff College at Quetta in India in 1913, was in England when the First World War began and joined the general staff of the 1st Australian Division in Egypt. Blamey landed at Gallipoli on 25 April 1915; in July he was promoted to temporary lieutenant colonel and returned to Egypt to help form the 2nd Australian Division.

On the Western Front, Blamey was appointed Chief of Staff and served as General Staff Officer 1 in the 1st Division until June 1918 when he was promoted to temporary brigadier and became Chief of Staff of the Australian Corps. After the war Blamey received several important postings, including one to London as Colonel, General Staff and Australia's representative on the Imperial General Staff. In 1925, he was appointed Second Chief of the Australian General Staff. Shortly afterwards, however, he left the regular army to become Victoria's commissioner of police and transferred to the militia.

Considered confrontational, violent, and ruthless, Blamey's tenure with the police was dogged by controversy; he was forced to resign in 1936 having lied to protect one of his senior officers. He remarried in April 1939 after the death of his first wife four years earlier. Within a month of the Second World War beginning he was given command of the 6th Division. The following year he became commander of the Australian Corps. Despite a mixed performance early in the war - his fitness for command was questioned by some subordinates - Blamey received further promotions and in December 1941 reached the rank of general.

In March 1942, with Japan having entered the war, Blamey returned to Melbourne as Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Military Forces and, under General Douglas MacArthur, became commander of Allied land forces in the Pacific. Overshadowed by the American and resented by many senior Australian officers, Blamey encountered numerous difficulties. His removal of several senior officers in Papua under pressure from MacArthur remains controversial.

Blamey conducted a series of successful offensives in New Guinea in 1943 but was criticised late in the war when Australians were involved in operations against long-bypassed Japanese units in New Guinea and Borneo. On a personal level, Blamey's public drinking and womanising harmed his reputation. Professionally, his failure to stand up for his subordinates prompted one historian to write that he was "the foremost Australian general of World War II but he will never be remembered as the greatest."

Blamey retired to Melbourne after the war and was promoted to field marshal on 8 June 1950. He died on 27 May 1951.

Image: https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/107532/
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===Thank you to the fans for making JOHN WAYNEnumber 6 on the The Harris Poll of America's Favorite Movie Stars! http://bit.ly/10SFN2k John Wayne is the only actor to have been in the Top Ten every year since the polls inception in 1994 and is the only deceased actor to ever appear on the list.
===Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who trusts in Him (Ps 34:8)!
===PERIS DRAFT REFLECTS A HATRED FOR ABBOTT

The reason for Gillard’s bastardry wasn’t that sitting ALP Senate Member Crossin was a Rudd supporter, there are many Rudd supporters on her front bench.

And it wasn’t that her NT vote might be recovered. In fact, trashing the Party’s pre-selection process will inflame further indigenous discontent. For Gillard, there was a much simpler reason and Gillard has always thought in simple terms.

Near the top of the list was to negate Abbott’s kudos he has acquired doing the good work he has always done for Aboriginal communities and regardless, the Coalition has conspicuously led the way in indigenous representation in Parliament anyway.

Abbott’s selfless time spent in Cape York, until his fire crew needed him down south, irks Gillard to distraction.

Gillard is a magnificent hater and she will do whatever it takes to kill off enemies that threaten her Prime Ministership. Abbott is firmly entrenched at the top of her enemies list.

Nothing is off the table when it comes to trashing Abbott and Gillard has witnessed the fruits of her relentless venom. As a result Abbott has become, and remains, unpopular.

But he who has the camera calls the tune and I didn’t notice any cameras following Abbott to Cape York or risking being caught in fire-storms. Oh, no... the Julia-infatuated media were more interested in doggy pics, knitting and what she and Timmy cooked for Xmas dinner.

Gillard hated that she was forced to follow in Abbott’s footsteps when she inspected the fire damage.

Abbott will keep doing what he believes he needs to do and Gillard will keep trying to negate or belittle it.

Let’s face it, Abbott is permanently on a public relations exercise and he needs to be because of Gillard’s relentless, and mostly unjustified, attacks on him.

Gillard’s Achilles heel remains her poor judgment and it was poor judgment to parachute Peris into a Senate seat at the expense of an ALP sitting member.

There seems no valid reason for such a party-destructive move other than that it was worth it to undercut Abbott’s commendable work with indigenous communities.

...she really is a piece of work.
===BER RECOGNITION CEREMONY KIT

Please Share – Every Australian needs to be aware of how the Gillard Government is attempting to brainwash our kids.

It’s not the waste, it’s not the reckless spending, it’s not the record debt, it’s not the broken promises, it’s not the lies, it’s not the Carbon Tax, it’s not the ETS, it’s not the failure to return the budget to surplus, it’s not the threats to ourfreedom of speech, nor their plans to control the media – if you want just one reason of why this Gillard Government must be punted from office, in great thrashing in Australian electoral history - it’s their plans to plans to peddle their propaganda to school children with their so-called “BER Recognition Ceremony Kit”.

This is taken direct from a Government website given teachers orders how to run a 'BER Ceremony';

“The Minister or his representative would welcome the opportunity to attend your Recognition Ceremony........

“For this reason, you are asked to propose three dates and times for your ceremony, as this provides the Minister or his representative more flexibility for attendance.......

"You need to ensure that the dates do not fall on a Parliamentary Sitting Day…….

“A plaque will be provided by the Australian Government for recognition of the assistance provided under the BER……….

“ACKNOWLEDGE THE AUSTRALIAN'S GOVERNMENT'S ASSISTANCE IN ALL SPEECHES AND PUBLICITY ISSUED BY THE SCHOOL........

Peddling propaganda in schools is synonymous with totalitarian regimes.

And here we have the Gillard Government sending out orders to schools that they must praise the government's assistance in all speeches and publicity.

That the Gillard Government find this as practice as acceptable should be a wakeup call to every Australian of why we must vote the Gillard Government out of office.
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===<~ I've seen better days, but I've also seen worse. I don't have everything that I want, but I do have all I need. I woke up with some aches and pains, but I woke up. My life may not be perfect but I am blessed.> Holly.
===Storm over Colorado Wind Farm — in Lamar, CO.

Hi everyone! Here's the MichelleMalkin.com newsletter for January 23rd. Enjoy!

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About Me

I'm author of History in a Year by the Conservative Voice aka History of the World in a Year by the Conservative Voice.

I'm the Conservative Voice.

I'm looking to make contact with those who might use my skill.

I have an m-audio mobile pre amp fed by the audiotechnica 2041sp condensor mic pack. Prior to 15/4/06, I'd used a Shure sm-58 that required a nuclear blast to register a sound or the internal mic of my aged imac, which has a penchance to recording my breathing. I also used a Griffin itrip, until the community convinced me it was not hiding my talent as well as the other mics.

I am a Writer and an occasional Math Teacher (Sir, what's the occasion?). I like to sing, having no instrumental talent (cannot even clap in time, and yes, I'm aware singing badly IS obnoxious).

I have performed the finale to Les Miserables before an audience of 500. I have also sung before a similar audience (students, parents) renditions of 'I Will' (Beatles), 'Mr Cairo' (Jon Vangelis) and 'I am Australian' (Seekers). Now I seek another profession because the audience hates me ..